Sunday, November 16, 2014

Video: Islamic State group beheads US aid worker



◼ An Islamic State group video released Sunday purports to show extremists beheading a dozen Syrian soldiers and ends with a militant claiming to have killed U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig, the latest slaughter proudly broadcast by the group on the Internet. - Diaa Hadid/Beirut AP

The video ends with the militant standing over a severed head he says belongs to Kassig. U.S. officials said they were working to determine the video's authenticity.

"We say to you, Obama: ... You claim to have withdrawn from Iraq four years ago," the militant said. "Here you are: You have not withdrawn. Rather, you hid some of your forces behind your proxies." A U.S.-led coalition is targeting the Islamic State group in airstrikes, supporting Western-backed Syrian rebels, Kurdish fighters and the Iraqi military.

Audio in the video appears to have been distorted to make it more difficult to identify the militant. Previous videos featured a militant with a British accent that the FBI says it has identified, though it hasn't named him publicly.

Later, the militant claims Kassig was killed because he "fought against the Muslims in Iraq, while serving as a soldier." Kassig, from Indianapolis, Indiana, served in the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, and deployed to Iraq in 2007.

After being medically discharged, Kassig formed the aid organization Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, in Turkey to aid Syrian refugees. He began delivering food and medical supplies to Syrian refugee camps in 2012 and provided trauma care to wounded Syrian civilians. Friends say he converted to Islam in captivity and took the first name Abdul-Rahman.

Burhan Agha, a Syrian friend who worked with Kassig in Lebanon and who moved to Switzerland seeking asylum, wept when recounting his generosity Sunday.

"If I could apologize to each American, one by one, I would, because Peter died in Syria, while he was helping the Syrian people," Agha told the AP by telephone. "Those who killed him claimed to have done it in the name of Islam. I am a Muslim and am from Syria. ... (His killers) are not Muslims."



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